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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27863445">In the Silence of the Night</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/onwards_outwards/pseuds/onwards_outwards'>onwards_outwards</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>But only for Elide, Canon Compliant, Elorcan, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Lorcan Salvaterre - Freeform, Lorcan is a sweetheart, Mid EOS, Mutual Pining, Period Cramps, Unresolved Romantic Tension, elide lochan - Freeform, protective lorcan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 23:49:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,062</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27863445</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/onwards_outwards/pseuds/onwards_outwards</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Lorcan Salvaterre has never been the comforting type – but with Elide in pain from her cycle, he has to try.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Elide Lochan/Lorcan Salvaterre</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>156</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>In the Silence of the Night</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Back again with another EoS moment, since I simply can't get enough of the absolute yearning between these two. </p><p>Also, since periods are an important topic in this story, I'd like to preface it with a reminder that not only women have periods and not every woman has periods! :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lorcan Salvaterre doesn’t love much, but he does love the world at night.</p><p>Maybe it’s Hellas’ influence on him, but he has always preferred night to day, always preferred the dark to the light.</p><p>He loves the way darkness drapes itself over the land, softening and altering the forest and plains beneath its touch, as gentle as a mother’s caress. He guides his boat – well his <em>stolen</em> boat – along the curve of the river and watches the glinting eyes of the creatures that creep along the banks. An unseen observer, he watches a doe lead her fawns through the forest, a rabbit peering back at him through the underbrush, and, a little bit farther down the river, a pack of wolves starting their hunt in a distant meadow. The world belongs to the wilderness at night; maybe that’s why Lorcan has only ever felt at home after the sun sets.</p><p>He glances up at the amazingly clear sky. The stars wink at him, cheerful and playful, as if they have some hidden reason to smile at him, some secret they’ve yet to divulge.</p><p>In five hundred years, he’s never grown tired of the night sky.</p><p>Lorcan sighs into the silence of the night, vowing to never take it for granted again. Travelling with that caravan had been a practical hell for a multitude of reasons, but mostly because they’d robbed him of his favorite thing: silence.</p><p>He’s never been overly fond of any humans, but over the years he’s learned to tolerate the soldiers and princes and even commoners he’s encountered.</p><p>But that caravan had been full of the worst kind of humans – <em>musicians</em>. Performers. Attention whores, the lot of them. They refused to shut the fuck up. He and his Fae hearing had been forced to endure the constant din of their humming and chatter, the sounds of couples sneaking away from the camp to fuck, the inevitable post-coital arguments of said couples.</p><p>Lorcan sighs. He maneuvers the boat around a wide curve in the river, digging the end of the long, wooden pole into the muddy riverbed, and revels in the quiet. There’s only the soft melody of the water lapping at the banks, the rustle of wind through the trees, the occasional creak of the wood beneath his feet.</p><p>Perfectly peaceful. Perfectly quiet.</p><p>Except for the absolute clamor within his mind. His fingers tense on the pole as the memory of today rises to the forefront of his mind, unbidden, just as it has all evening: Elide, terror written on her face as she stood before her uncle. Elide, sobbing bitterly as she raised a dagger to her chest. Elide, heaving an axe into the ilken’s ugly face.</p><p>He shifts his weight, uncomfortably remembering the terror that had sliced through him at the sight, sharper than any blade that has ever pierced his skin.</p><p>Lorcan Salvaterre is not used to fear. Even the memory of it sits uncomfortably on his skin, like a sheen he can’t wash away.</p><p>Elide had been so close to death. Half a moment’s difference, and she would have been dead. Gone. Forever out of his reach. Just another corpse to bury. Just another smile forever stolen from the world. From <em>him.</em> No more admiring her collarbones or the strands of hair that fall out of her braid or her slightly crooked front teeth.</p><p><em>Stop</em>, he commands himself, <em>She’s fine. She’s alive. Stop. </em></p><p>Lorcan shakes his head, trying to turn his focus back to the unbroken peace of the night, the soft silence enveloping his vessel, the surrounding forest…</p><p>His ears prick at the sound of a whimper, nose wrinkling as the acrid, unmistakable scent of pain drifts across the deck. For the tenth time in an hour, Lorcan glances over his shoulder at the door separating the deck from the sleeping quarters. This boat was not built for much more than short voyages, probably fishing trips; it consists only of the small deck where he stands and a cramped room where the owner obviously slept.</p><p>The boat is tiny enough that when Elide was angry at him, there was nowhere to hide from her rage; now there’s nowhere to hide from her pain.</p><p>Nowhere to hide from the moment burned on the back of his eyelids, replaying over and over and over in his mind’s eye.</p><p>Lorcan’s hand drifts up to his cheek, his fingers running absently over his stubble as he strains his hearing, listening for another sound from her. She knows about his hearing, knows that he will pick up on any noise she makes. Which must mean she is in too much pain to stay silent if she’s allowing herself to make any noise at all; Lorcan knows she wouldn’t clue him in to any weakness if she could avoid it.</p><p>He remembers himself with a jolt, hastily lowering his hand. Five hundred years old, and acting like some blushing virgin. It’s not like he’s never been kissed on the cheek before.</p><p>Maybe he can’t remember the last time it happened but…surely it <em>has</em> happened? Surely, in five centuries, <em>someone</em> has found an occasion to kiss his cheek?</p><p>“Of course someone has,” he mumbles to himself, indignant at the very thought. He’s been kissed countless times – in places far more intimate than a cheek; no one can say Lorcan Salvaterre isn’t kissable.</p><p>Elide’s peck just caught him off guard because women usually don’t kiss him like <em>that</em> – chastely. Sweetly. When he’s kissed, it’s always as a prelude to sex. A sort of sacrifice women demand before they’ll bed him. And usually, Lorcan kisses them back. He pulls hair and attacks necks, leaves bruises and bites skin.</p><p>But Elide Lochan – little, fierce Elide Lochan – had kissed <em>him</em>. On the cheek. Made a promise she surely didn’t mean, then marched away without even giving him a chance to respond. As if kissing the cheeks of Demi-Fae blessed by death himself is a hobby of hers.</p><p>Lorcan’s fingers brush against his cheek again, almost against his will. Balling his hand into a fist, he focuses his attention on the river ahead of him, the moonlight glinting over the ripples on the still water and revealing the current beneath, Tries to enjoy the peace of the night again.</p><p>A sharp hiss from the room behind him and Lorcan stiffens. The scent of Elide’s pain is heavy in the air, more pronounced than the pain from her ankle has ever been. Or maybe he’s just grown used to that. This is sharper, mixed with her leftover fear from the encounter with the ilken.</p><p>He hates the smell.</p><p>It tugs at his bones, washing over everything else – drowns out the scent of the river, the warm, earthy smell of the forest, the faint trace of animals in the air. Every muscle in Lorcan’s body screams at him to cross the deck and make that pain stop, to soothe those whimpers and whines, to comfort her until she sleeps, then kill anything and everything that makes her feel this way.</p><p><em>Fucking Fae instincts</em>, he thinks, inwardly cursing his heritage. It’s just a biological imperative, he tells himself; the urge to protect the defenseless is just the remnant of some animalistic instinct meant to prolong the race, the species.</p><p>Just a biological imperative.</p><p>Never mind the fact that he’s left countless women crying in their beds, ignoring their pleas for him to stay without so much as a flutter of his conscious. He’s walked across battlefields full of weeping, dying men without glancing at the bodies beneath his feet. His hands have sown blood in every corner of the world without a glimmer of guilt.</p><p>But the sound of Elide’s muffled whimpers sets him on edge more than any battle cry.</p><p>With a heavy, begrudging sigh, Lorcan steers the boat toward an eddy in the river bank. Using the pole as a stake, he moors the boat with a few quick knots. He takes a step back and considers his work; thanks to the eddy, the boat is free of the influence of the current so there’s no danger of floating away. He takes a deep sniff, making sure the forest is uninhabited, but he hasn’t caught the scent of another human for hours. Of course, the ilken could still find them – but, Lorcan reasons to himself, if the ilken are going to find them, it doesn’t much matter whether they’re sailing or stationary.</p><p>He hesitates, glancing at the dim candlelight streaming out from under the door of the captain’s quarters. Does Elide even want his help? She’s certainly not angry at him anymore – at least, not like she was before – but Elide is as stubborn as any human or Fae he’s ever met. He’s sure she would insist she was fine with her intestines in her hands.</p><p><em>Well, you already moored the boat</em>, he thinks, <em>Better make up your mind before she storms out here and rages at you for stopping</em>.</p><p>Lorcan grins to himself and raises his fingers to his cheek as he imagines that stubborn look she always wears during an argument. Decision made, he sets his shoulders, crosses the deck, and knocks once before slipping into the sleeping quarters.</p><p>The room is so tiny Lorcan has to slouch to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling; he barely has room to take three strides in any direction. The only furniture that the owner managed to fit inside was a cot and a trunk that’s disappointingly empty, save for a few discarded fishing lures.</p><p>She lies on the cot, curled into a tight ball. He’s managed to catch the usually alert Elide off-guard and for just a moment, he sees an expression of pure, undiluted pain on her face. Her eyes are screwed shut, her face turned away from the single candle burning on the trunk; both of her hands are clenched into fists and pressed into her lower stomach.</p><p>Then Lorcan remembers.</p><p>In the chaos after the ilken attack, he’d completely forgotten the reason they stopped in the tiny town in the first place: her cycle. He’d assumed her pain was from her ankle or maybe a head ache.</p><p>But he’d forgotten about the most obvious explanation.</p><p>“Why’d we stop?” she asks, waking him from his realization.</p><p>In the moment it took him to figure out the source of her pain, Elide has trained her face back into an unreadable mask. She pulls one hand off of her stomach to rest under her cheek, relaxing her body until it looks like she might just be attempting sleep.</p><p>Judging by the scent of pain so thick it’s almost <em>humid</em>, he knows her mask is just that – a lie.  </p><p>Lorcan is surprised that it hurts him.</p><p>After all this time, doesn’t she feel like she can tell him when something hurts her? Doesn’t she trust him to help her? To protect her?</p><p>Doesn’t she know he’d do anything for her, if she’d only ask?</p><p>“Even Demi-Fae have to sleep,” he says with a casual shrug, sitting against the wall opposite the cot, “Or is that not all right with you?”</p><p>“Should’ve known I wasn’t lucky enough to get out of sleeping with you,” she mutters with a teasing eye roll. He grins at her words, latching onto the innuendo. Even in the dancing, dim candlelight, Lorcan sees the bright blush on her cheeks. “That’s not – I didn’t mean like –”</p><p>Lorcan knows what she means, but for a moment he considers teasing her. It’s so easy to press her, push her to the edge, such a delight to see her tiny frame puff up in anger. He loves it when she points her little finger in his face, scolding him like a child and not a warrior older than she can fathom.</p><p>But as well-hidden as it may be, he still sees the pain in her eyes. Still sees that look of anguish on her face as the ilken closed in on her. Still feels the brush of her lips against his cheek.</p><p>Tonight’s not the night for teasing.</p><p>“I’d say this is quite the upgrade from our tent,” he says, “Cozy as it was, I was tired of sleeping on the ground.”</p><p>“Yeah, I’m sure the floor will be much more comfortable,” she says. There’s something tight about her voice, even as she tries to sound casual.</p><p>“You offering me the bed, then?”</p><p>“Not a chance,” she says, burrowing deeper into the cot.</p><p>He chuckles when she quirks her brows at him, as if challenging him to come remove her.</p><p>“What’s wrong, Elide?” he asks, though he already knows. The scent of her blood is much more pronounced in here than on the deck; it sets every tendon, muscle, and bone in his body on edge. Though he logically knows it’s just her cycle, he can’t seem to convince his body that she’s not in danger.</p><p>“Nothing.”</p><p>He raises a brow.</p><p>She rolls her eyes, immediately dropping the façade of relaxation and tensing back into her fetal position.</p><p>“Female problems,” she says with a tiny, rueful grin.</p><p>He shifts uncomfortably. He’s dealt with women, of course – fucked them, fought them, befriended them. But they were never close enough to discuss…<em>this</em>. He always assumed the topic of cycles was something women reserved for their loved ones – their sisters and female friends and husbands. It feels rude, somehow, to force Elide to have this conversation with him.</p><p>But he has to help.</p><p>“It…it didn’t hurt this badly last time,” he says uncertainly, “Did it?”</p><p>Her last cycle had come with little fanfare. She’d carried the acrid, coppery scent of blood for a few days but showed no sign of pain or discomfort. At that point, they’d barely been able to tolerate looking at each other, much less discussing her bodily functions. Neither of them had mentioned it.</p><p>“No,” she says with a cringe, digging her knuckles into the flesh of her lower stomach. Lorcan catches himself wondering how soft that skin is, what it would feel like under <em>his</em> fingers, and quickly shakes the thoughts from his mind. “I suppose when the body’s healthier, the cycles are worse. Makes sense. Nothing can ever be easy for women.”</p><p>“In five hundred years, that might be the truest thing I’ve ever heard.”</p><p>Elide fixes him with a glare so malevolent it almost makes him flinch.</p><p>“I’m not teasing, Elide,” he assures her, “The gods always seems to make sure women suffer worse – and more frequently – than men. Men talk in terms of war and peacetime, battles and armistices. But for women, the fear of violence is constant.”</p><p>“When it’s not some man on the street, it’s your own body,” she agrees, her glare melting to a slight smile tinged with embarrassment of her previous defensiveness.</p><p>“Is there…anything I can do?” he asks.</p><p>“Well, I left my supplies when we ran,” she sighs, “So, whenever it’s safe, could we stop somewhere again? Only, let’s not –”</p><p>She cuts herself off, biting her lip as if she almost said something she didn’t mean to.</p><p>“Let’s not split up?” he offers, the corner of his lips twitching at the grateful smile she flashes him, “Yeah, good luck getting out of my sight, Elide. You’re stuck with me for the foreseeable future.”</p><p>“Oh, no,” she says, raising the back of her hand to her forehead like some damsel in distress, “What a shame! A dark god protecting me from monsters! Leave me, Lorcan! Let me fight and die alone!”</p><p>“Ha, ha,” he says in a monotone, hoping she doesn’t see his grin as she bursts out laughing. Hoping she doesn’t notice that his heart almost drops out of his chest at the words <em>die alone</em>. “I’m no dark god, Elide.”</p><p>“No, you’re just blessed by one,” she says, “Aren’t you?”</p><p>“How’d you know?”</p><p>She shrugs. “I notice things.”</p><p>He barks out a sudden laugh, the words catching him off guard. “<em>That</em> might be the truest thing I’ve ever heard.”</p><p>“So, is it Hellas?” she asks, a hint of warm pride in her voice.</p><p>He nods. “Maeve thinks that’s where my power comes from.” He clenches his hand into a fist, sending a spark of energy to the brace of dark magic around her ankle. She squeals, her pain seemingly forgotten for a moment, and leans off the cot to swat at him.</p><p>“That tickles!” she laughs, “Don’t do that!”</p><p>He chuckles, holding up his hands in submission as she settles back onto the cot.</p><p>“Doesn’t seem like some dark power,” she says, “Unless the god of death is fond of tickling.”</p><p>“Maybe he is,” says Lorcan dismissively, “Who’s to say? It seems your Lady of Wise Things is fond of bullying, given the way you speak to me.”</p><p>“Perhaps she is,” says Elide, equally airily, “Who’s to say?”</p><p>They sit in silence for a moment, grinning at each other. Lorcan has enough time to marvel at how utterly <em>strange </em>it feels to be so comfortable with someone, to <em>want</em> to talk to someone, when Elide winces again. His instincts come crashing back around him.</p><p>“Would my magic help?” he asks, “With the pain?”</p><p>She shakes her head, her eyes screwed shut. He sees a shiver pass through her entire body. “Not unless you can wrap it around my womb,” she says through clenched teeth.</p><p>“I know of some herbs that help pain,” he says, climbing to his feet and heading to the door, “I’m sure there’s some in the forest. I’ll just –”</p><p>“Lorcan, no!” she says and, quicker than even his Fae vision can catch, her hand shoots out and grabs his.</p><p>He gapes down at her, surprised at the desperation in her voice. If the dark red blush painting her cheeks is any indication, she too seems to have realized how much emotion she revealed in the two words but she doesn’t loosen her grip on his hand.</p><p>“You just said you weren’t letting me out of your sight,” she says, her voice shaking slightly, “That goes for you, too.”</p><p>“It’ll take two minutes, Elide,” he insists, taking another step towards the door, but she doesn’t release his hand. Instead, she slides her fingers between his to tighten her grip.</p><p>His mouth is suddenly very dry and his heart is beating so fast he feels like he just ran the length of the Avery.</p><p>“Do you know how I’d feel if you got snatched up by an ilken all because I couldn’t handle a few cramps?” she says, trying to sound light-hearted, but Lorcan hears the strain in her voice. The fear. The worry. The embarrassment.</p><p>“There is no shame in being in pain,” he says firmly.</p><p>She blinks up at him, taken aback at the intensity in his words.</p><p>“I know,” she says. He hates it when her voice sounds like this – small and tinny and unsure. It makes him feel like he’s failed her. “Stay.”</p><p>He regards her for a moment, searching her face for any sign of pain she’s hiding.</p><p>“Tell me how to help, then.”</p><p>“Just stay,” she says, voice strained with embarrassment, but she continues, “Just stay and talk. That helped. Talking to you.”</p><p>“I don’t know how to talk,” he says, carefully easing back to the ground, though this time he sits with his back to the trunk by the cot. Close enough so she can keep holding his hand.</p><p>Only for her sake, of course. Only because maybe it could help her pain…somehow.</p><p>She doesn’t release his hand, tentatively extricating her fingers and playing with them instead; tapping each of his fingertips one by one, tracing his scars, running along his knuckles. Lorcan barely allows himself to breathe for fear that it might make her stop.</p><p>“Me neither,” she says, “But I was kept in a tower for the majority of my life. What’s your excuse?”</p><p>“I’ve been too busy massacring to learn table manners,” he says in a deadpan tone. Not quite lashing out at her – but trying to remind her who he is. Why he doesn’t deserve these feather-light touches she’s tracing over his hand.</p><p>His hand that has killed and killed and <em>killed</em>.</p><p>“Well then, we make quite the couple, don’t we?” she says with a chuckle, turning his palm toward her and running her pinky finger along the lines of his hand. Not even a flash of doubt or hatred crosses her face at his words.</p><p>Maybe it’s the awed, gentle way she’s touching him or her wording – <em>why’d she say <strong>couple</strong>, why not pair or duo or <strong>anything else </strong></em>– but he sits utterly still and silent, praying to Hellas and whatever other god is listening to let this moment continue.</p><p>“Quite,” he manages to say. Then, fumbling for something else, something to break the heavy, warm silence descending upon them, he says, “What does it feel like? The pain?”</p><p>She cocks her head at him, furrowing her brows. A little notch appears between them and Lorcan has to bite back a smile. “Why?”</p><p>“I’d like to know,” he says, with a shrug, “It might be the one type of pain I’ll never experience.”</p><p>She nods thoughtfully, turning her gaze back to his hand in hers as she considers the question.</p><p>Lorcan doesn’t love much, but he thinks he loves this: the way she thinks. The weight she gives every question, no matter how simple. The way she mulls something over, considering all of its sides and angles. The little crease that appears between her brows, the way she purses her lips.</p><p>“It feels like someone’s reached into my stomach and grabbed my womb,” she says, holding out a clenched fist to demonstrate. She twists her hand as she speaks, miming a wrenching motion. “And then they <em>twist</em> and <em>pull</em> like they’re trying to tear it from my body. So, there’s a constant ache. But then there are sharp pains, too, that shoot through my whole body. And heat flashes. Then chills.”</p><p>“<em>Hellas</em>,” he mutters, “That sounds…”</p><p>“Terrible?” she offers, flashing a tiny grin, “Yes, I’d agree. I <em>was</em> going to say it feels like being stabbed, but it looks like you have more experience in that than me.”</p><p>She taps his bare forearm, exposed by his rolled-up sleeves. Lorcan glances down and is almost surprised at the scar on his arm, gleaming white and smooth against his dark skin. He’s had the majority of his scars for so long he’s almost forgotten he wasn’t born with them.</p><p>“Oh,” he says, hoping she doesn’t feel the shiver than runs through him as she draws her finger along the length of the scar, “Yes. Well-spotted. I suppose Annieth also taught you how to recognize stab wounds?”</p><p>“Lorcan!” she gasps, raising herself up on one elbow before a spasm of pain crosses her face and she collapses back on the cot. Lorcan narrowly stops himself from shooting out a hand to ease her head back onto the pillow. “I was – I was teasing! I didn’t – you really – someone <em>stabbed</em> you?”</p><p>“For someone who constantly reminds me what a cruel, stupid warrior I am, I didn’t think you’d be so surprised to learn I’ve <em>actually</em> been to war,” he says drily, thoroughly enjoying the awe and concern on her face.</p><p>Maybe Fenrys was right. Women <em>do</em> love scars.</p><p>“You got this in a war?” she breathes, her wide, dark eyes meeting his.</p><p>“Actually, I think that one was from a night in Doranelle,” he says, straining his memory, “A particularly <em>rowdy </em>night in Doranelle.”</p><p>“Lorcan Salvaterre,” she muses, “Conqueror of barrooms and warrior of brawls.”</p><p>The corner of his lips quirk upward, but she moves on quickly. “And this one?” She taps another scar on his arm, this one on his inner forearm. The skin is mottled by a burn, but is more faded than his other scars.</p><p>“Oh, that one was a long time ago,” he chuckles, remembering the circumstances of that particular mark, “I was young. Hot-tempered. Pissed off Whitethorn –”</p><p>“Who’s Whitethorn?”</p><p>Lorcan glances up, meeting her gaze. Should he tell her that the silver-haired bastard is in love with her queen? With an uncomfortable pinch of guilt, he thinks about his plan for Aelin, his need for the wyrdkey, what he might do to get it…</p><p>No. Not tonight. He won’t ruin this – not with lies or clever omissions.</p><p>The truth it is, for his own Lady of Wise Things.</p><p>“Some Fae asshole I know,” he says, “Actually, you’ll probably get to meet him. He’s following after your queen like a puppy in love.”</p><p>“Really?” she says, grinning.</p><p>He also might love how easily she smiles.</p><p>Lorcan nods. “He was a part of Maeve’s cadre, too. But Aelin got him out.”</p><p>She nods carefully, as if the mention of Maeve might make him retreat from her. He squeezes her hand, as slightly as he can manage, but she feels it – understands the message behind it: <em>I’m here. With you. Not her. <strong>You</strong>. </em></p><p>“Well, what did he do?” she says, tapping his scar again with her free hand.</p><p>“We were training,” Lorcan says, “Whitethorn has a little party trick – he controls wind the way your queen controls fire. Back then, he didn’t have as much…restraint…as he does now. I was winning our sparring session – pretty easily, I might add – and <em>maybe</em> I was letting him know it. Humbly, of course.”</p><p>“Of course,” echoes Elide, her teeth glinting in the candlelight as she smiles.</p><p>Maybe Lorcan loves those, too – her delightfully crooked teeth.</p><p>“I pushed him too far. Had him pinned on the ground, and instead of actually using any <em>thought</em> or <em>strategy</em> to maneuver his way out, he just blasted me with a gust of wind. Sent me directly into a brazier. Luckily, my arm landed in the fire, not my face.”</p><p>Elide tuts, her smile replaced by a tiny frown as she touches his scar again. “Don’t worry, Salvaterre,” she says, “I’ll avenge you when I meet him.”</p><p>“Oh, I avenged myself pretty quickly,” he says, raising his free hand to twirl a ribbon of darkness through the air, “I have party tricks of my own.”</p><p>She grins at him and for a moment, he feels as if Whitethorn himself is in the quarters with them, stealing his breath out of his lungs. It’s easy to forget the terrors that Elide has seen, but the look on her face today as she drove that axe into the ilken reminded him; there’s something similar in the look she gives him now. Something vengeful. Just like Annieth, who is the Lady of both Wise Things <em>and</em> Slow Deaths, Elide has a wrathful side.</p><p>She usually hides it – her thirst for vengeance, her bent towards cruelty – but here, with her skin brushing Lorcan’s, she’s taken off all her masks, shown her wrath plain and clear.</p><p>And he <em>knows</em> he loves that.</p><p>But she moves on. “And this one?”</p><p>Then, “And this scar? Who did this?”</p><p>And, “Where’s this one from?”</p><p>He dutifully answers each question, telling her as much of the stories that he can recall while her voice grows warmer and slower, relaxing deeper and deeper into her cot. By the time the candle melts and sputters out, she sounds half-asleep.</p><p>“And this one?” she whispers, her words coming slow and slurred. She raises a finger of her free hand to brush against a tiny, faded scar on his chin. There’s no way her human eyes can make out the scar in the new darkness; she knows where it is from memory.</p><p>“One of my earliest,” he whispers back, keeping his voice low and steady, hoping to lull her asleep and forget her pain. “When I was a child, some merchant caught me stealing and backhanded me. His ring split the skin.”</p><p>He immediately knows it was the wrong thing to say. She tenses again, and he braces himself for a new wave of her pain-filled scent, but none comes.</p><p>“What?” he breathes.</p><p>“I’ve never…” she says, her hand tightening around his, “Never thought about you as a child.”</p><p>“Oh.” He swallows. “Well, it was a long time ago –”</p><p>“Why were you stealing?”</p><p>Lorcan’s pride rears its head within him; usually he’d snap at anyone who dared ask about his past. He’s given Fenrys more than a few thrashings for the same offense. But the way Elide asks…not to mock, but to understand, to sympathize…to comfort.</p><p>“I was an orphan,” he says, and even he can tell his voice sounds raw. How long have they been talking? Hours, at least. “A beggar.”</p><p>There’s a beat of silence that seems to stretch on for eternity; Lorcan would think she was asleep if he couldn’t feel the tension in her fingers, still gripping his hand tightly.</p><p>“Oh, Lorcan,” she says, and he’s alarmed to hear her voice breaking. He sees tears well in her eyes through the dark. She squeezes his hand, sweeping her thumb over his knuckles. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>“You don’t need to be,” he says, too brusquely, but the pity dripping from her voice makes him uncomfortable. He doesn’t deserve this sympathy, especially from someone who saw her own share of childhood horrors. He was wrong – so wrong – to even consider that he might. “It’s in the past. There’s no changing it.”</p><p>“No, I know,” she says, “But I…I still wish it had been different. For you. You didn’t deserve a past like that. You were just a child – and you deserved to be loved. Not hit.”</p><p>He takes a deep breath. Another. Another. One of her fingers is draped over the veins in his wrist; if he doesn’t keep his heartbeat under control, she’ll feel his heart race at her words.</p><p>“So did you, Elide,” he says.</p><p>He watches his words wash over her. She closes her eyes, the corners of her lips twitching downwards, and for a moment he’s afraid he’s ruined all of the progress they’ve made in lulling her to sleep. But then she smiles.</p><p>A soft, sweet smile so genuine Lorcan is sure she must have forgotten that he can see her.</p><p>“You still do, Lorcan,” she whispers. Her eyes still closed, she raises his knuckles to her lips and, for the second time that day, presses a chaste kiss to his skin.</p><p>She doesn’t open her eyes again. Her heart races for a moment, before slowing back to its normal steady beat. Her breathing is slow and rhythmic and after a few moments of silence she slips asleep, her hand loosening in his.</p><p>But Lorcan doesn’t let go. He can’t seem to catch his breath.</p><p>He wishes her kiss could cleanse his hand of all the blood it’s spilled, all the pain and grief and turmoil it’s caused. Wishes she’d kiss him again, this time on his lips. Soft, like before. Or harder and faster. He could teach her to kiss – teach her slowly, learn how she likes it, then only ever kiss her that way. If only he could tuck her body in his arms and sleep with her there forever, warm and soft and safe against him. He’d talk to her like this every night if he could; he’d make it his only mission to make her laugh and smile like that every day of his life.</p><p>Looking at her, peaceful and open in sleep, her pain forgotten, he wants nothing to do with Aelin fucking Galythinius or her new lapdog Whitethorn or Maeve or wyrdkeys or killing or blood. He wants only this – her small hand in his, her lips on his skin, her smile turned toward him.</p><p>“You deserve to be loved, too, Elide,” he whispers, his voice barely louder than a breath; she doesn’t stir. Lorcan wishes he could kiss her back. That he could brush his lips over <em>her</em> knuckles. That he could be soft, too.</p><p>Here, with her, in the silence of the night, he thinks he could be. He could learn, if she’d teach him.</p><p>He would put down his blades for her.</p><p>If she would only ask.</p><p>Lorcan watches her for a long time, listening to the rhythm of her breathing while keeping an ear out for any activity on the riverbank, willing the sun to slow in its course back to the horizon, praying for dawn to hold out for one more hour. Just so he can sit in this silence and memorize the way her palm fits into his, the way her fingers twitch in her sleep.</p><p>But the sun has no time to listen to the prayers of some lovesick fool, and soon – too soon – soft, delicate light begins to seep under the door to their quarters. It’s only a matter of time until Elide wakes; will she be as amenable as she was last night, or was her fondness for him just a result of their exhausting day and the pain within her body? Will she wake and withdraw her hand from his? He can already imagine the look of embarrassment and disgust that might cross her face – and he simply doesn’t think he could stand it.</p><p>But if her mind hasn’t changed…If all of their conversation was real, genuine…if she meant it when she pressed that gentle kiss to his knuckles…what then? What face would she give him? Something bashful yet proud, or a full, wide grin? With Elide, it’s hard to predict. He can already imagine the way she might squeeze his hand…maybe she’d find a reason to kiss him again…</p><p>No. No, best not to get his hopes up. Lorcan shakes his head. There was a time when he only expected disappointment, when he centered his plans around the worst outcome, not the best. Since when did he become such a simpering, optimistic fool?</p><p>Maybe <em>Elide</em> is the one blessed with dark powers; she must be, if she was able to change him from an untouchable, unfeeling soldier to <em>this</em> in a matter of months.</p><p>And the worst part is, Lorcan can’t even make himself be angry about it. It feels…<em>nice</em> to be hopeful for a change. <em>Nice</em> to enjoy a night of simple conversation. <em>Nice</em> to want to kiss a woman not just as a prelude to sex, but for the simple pleasure of kissing.</p><p>Gently, slowly, Lorcan pulls his hand out of Elide’s grasp. She’s a light sleeper, but with his Fae grace he’s able to slip out of her hold without waking her. She stirs as he places her hand back on the cot, but he gives a gentle, “Shhh, Elide, it’s only me” and she nestles back into her pillow with a nod and a sleepy, “Mmhm.”</p><p>He smiles to himself as he steps out of the quarters and into the strengthening dawn. He does a quick survey of their surroundings, and finding them gracefully ilken- and human-free, gets to work. He rifles through his pack and grabs the first shirt he sees before digging around for one of his smaller daggers. Pulling it out of its sheath, Lorcan makes quick work of the shirt, slicing it into evenly-shaped rags for her cycle. Then repeats the process with another tunic.</p><p>Just in case.</p><p>He pushes the door open and winces at the creak of the hinges, the ray of light that falls upon Elide’s sleeping face. Lorcan stills, but she only rolls over out of the sunlight, her mouth slightly open. He carefully sets the rags down on the trunk.</p><p>He turns to go, but not before pausing to look at her first. With her mouth open on the pillow, her hair loose and tangled over her shoulder, her dress stained and wrinkled, he shouldn’t think she looks perfect.</p><p>But he does.</p><p>Lorcan leans forward and, with the deftness only Fae possess, plucks a strand of hair from her cheek and tucks it behind her ear.</p><p>He schools his face back into its usual stony expression as he leaves the room, carefully closing the door behind him so as not to disturb her, and doesn’t allow himself to smile as he unties the boat from its mooring and begins their journey south again.</p><p>Lorcan Salvaterre doesn’t love much, but he knows, as he absently brushes his fingers over his cheek, that he loves Elide Lochan.</p><p>And that there’s absolutely nothing he can do about it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>As always, I love and welcome any criticism, review, or suggestion!!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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